Mariners Moose Tracks, 2/1/23: Justin Hollander, Dexter Fowler, and Shohei Ohtani

Feb 1, 2023 - 3:00 PM

Hello everyone and happy February! Importantly, it is now Black History Month. This would be a great time to catch up on Pat Ellington, Jr.’s profiles of Black baseball players around the minors and majors. We linked to the one he did on Julio last week, but he’s got around a dozen to read up on now.

Also, pitchers and catchers report this month and baseball is just around the corner. Let’s dive into the latest from around baseball.

In Mariners news...

• We’ve got spring training dates lined up!

• Mark Feinsand sat down Justin Hollander for an interview about his rise to the post of General Manager and his experience working for the Mariners.

Around the league...

• Longtime outfielder Dexter Fowler has decided to call it a career. Fun fact: at the time of his retirement, Fowler is the MLB active leader in triples with 82. Now Charlie Blackmon and Alcides Escobar hold that title with 58 apiece.
• Shohei Ohtani is the king of poor business decisions. This man could have had a branding deal with anyone and he chose New Balance?

• Evan Drellich at The Athletic dropped an except from his upcoming book “Winning Fixes Everything” in which he tells an oral history of how The Athletic broke the Astros cheating scandal in the first place. ($)
• I’ve got to say, I find “Grades” to be a very reductive practice. Every team’s situation is unique. For instance: there’s no way you’re telling me the Nationals positioned their team for success in 2023 and beyond as well as the Mariners did.

• Bob Nightengale at USA Today told the story of Malachi Moore and his unlikely story to becoming a full-time MLB umpire.

Anders’ picks...

• Netflix is about to lose a metric ass ton of money.